I thought I might do a little something, this year, that would help me focus on what this season is really about, and maybe it could help you, too. I’m going to take the story of Jesus’s birth, found in Luke 2, and go verse by verse, 1 through 24, to see what happens. Here we go…

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born… ~ Luke 2:6 NIV

Mary knew that baby would come while they were gone. She had to have known, as large and uncomfortable as she was. As a young woman, she’d very likely witnessed the birth of babies in her village, and seen the signs of labor.

But this baby? If you had been approached by Gabriel, himself, and told you were going to carry the very Son of God, would you have been trembling at the thought of delivery? I think that both she and Joseph would’ve been a little nervous, wondering if this would be a completely normal affair, or if the heavens would split open and God, Himself, would show up in attendance. And then to be on the road, on top of everything else, well, I can only imagine her state of mind.

There have been times when I’ve said “yes” to God to things that were way beyond me (the stuff He asks us to do usually always is). I’ve moved forward with a trepidation that found me quaking, taking each shaky step in anticipation of what the end product would prove to be. And while I was never sure, of course, there was a sweetness in the journey that told my heart “He’s got this,” and allowed me, with butterflies fluttering, to wait for Him to show up and show out.

That’s what I think was happening when the first pains started coming on a dusty road in Bethlehem. Quaking? Yes. Nervous? Certainly. But all the while, the sweet sound of “He’s got this,” in her ear, and with all the world and the heavenly host, the anticipation of His showing up and showing out.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,  to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. ~ Ephesians 3:20-21 NKJ